Women's & Gender Studies

Graduate Profiles

Students enrolled in the M.A. in Women's & Gender Studies program share a common core sequence of courses. In their choice of electives, students customize their degrees, drawing on the diverse course options available in the UNI curriculum as well as on their individual interests. Each student creates a degree unique to them that are supported by a solid foundation in feminist theory and cutting-edge perspectives on gender analysis. The sample profiles below illustrate the broad range of choices recent students have made.

Thesis: Drowning in Loneliness and Writing the Blues: Creating Lesbian Space in the Novels of Radclyffe Hall and Leslie Feinberg was based on the following course electives
Electives: Seminar on Virginia Woolf; Readings in Women's & Gender Studies: Lesbian Literary theory; Women and Christianity; Seminar in Political Communication; Fundraising and Grant Development
Other Degree Highlights: nominated for the UNI Outstanding Thesis Award; graduate assistantship with two professors on self-esteem among adult women
Current Position: Associate Senior Editor of a medical journal

Thesis: Attitudes Toward Aging Lesbians: An exploratory Study
Electives: Women and Aging; Social Services for the Aged; Qualitative Research Methods; Readings in Women's & Gender Studies: Aging and Lesbians
Other Degree Highlights: Co-author of research study on college students' attitudes toward diverse expression sexuality

Current Position: Advisor to Director of General Studies a university, will start doctorate in higher education administration

Thesis: A Whole Range of Women - A Novel
Electives: Writers of the Harlem Renaissance; Readings in English: African American Women Writers; Studies in Literatures of the Midwest; Studies in Fiction Writing; Blues, Film, and African-American Literatures; 19th Century Women Writers
Other Degree Highlights: Presented a paper on "Challenging Definitions of Female Creativity" at the Midwest/MidAtlantic Feminist Graduate Student Conference; graduate assistantship with a professor on Midwestern Women Who Return to Orthodox Judaism
Current Position: Legal assistant and researcher, labor and gender discrimination law practice. Continues creative writing with publications in regional journals.

Thesis: Images of Japanese Women Who Seek Emancipation Through the Experience of Death
Electives: Images of Women in Literature; Studies in the Short Story; Studies in the Canadian Short Story; Readings in Japanese Religion and Culture
Other Degree Highlights: Presented paper on her thesis research at the University of Montana
Current Position: Instructor of English, at a university

Thesis: Accentuate The Positive and Ignore The Real: World War II Nurses In So Proudly We Hail And Movietone Newsreels
Electives: Theories of Sex and Gender; Marxism; Women and Christianity
Other Degree Highlights: participation at a meeting on the theme Feminist Challenge: Theories, Practice and Politics in Chicago; speaking on the feminist panel in the course, "Gender Issues in Communication"
Current Position: Program Manager for a company

Thesis: Making Trouble: A Queer Activist's Handbook
Electives: Fundraising and Grant Writing for Non-Profits; Practicum in Women's Studies; Feminist Literary Theories and Practice
Other Degree Highlights: nominated for the UNI Outstanding Master's Thesis Award; Project Director of the Students Against a Violent Environment helping to write a campus violence prevention grant, which was submitted to the Justice Department in Washington D.C. and granted; co-presentation of a paper entitled "Trans-Gendering Feminist Subjects: Pedagogy, Curriculum and the Inclusion of Gender Diversity" at the National Women's Studies Association Conference New Mexico
Current Position: Coordinator of School and Community Outreach and a Case Manager at a university Youth and AIDS Projects

Thesis: Sickos, Psychos, and Sluts: Images of Transgendered Women in Media Culture
Electives: Qualitative Research Methods; Thesis Research; Topics in Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual Studies
Other Degree Highlights: participation at the National Women's Studies Association in New Mexico; nominated for the Outstanding Graduate Assistant Award; participation at the "On the Edge: Borders, Literatures, and Cultural Practices" conference in Montana
Current Position: M.A. program at a university

Thesis: Supporting Survivors of Sexual Assault: A Feminist Perspective
Electives: Gender: Cross Cultural Perspective; Seminar in Communication: Languages, Gender, and Culture; Feminist Literature and Practice
Other Degree Highlights: participation at the Expo-96 sponsored by the Feminist Majority in Washington D.C.
Current Position: Curriculum Development Director for a state

Thesis: For the Development of Women's Studies in the New Millennium: A Survey of Women's Studies Master's Degree Programs in the United States from the Students' Perspective
Electives: Single Parent Family Issues; Gender: Poststructuralist, Psychoanalytic, and Feminist Perspectives: Women's Health
Other Degree Highlights: participation at the National Women's Studies Association in New Mexico, participation to the conference in Boston on "Reevaluation and Repositioning: Gender, Women's Agency and Development in China at the Threshold of the New Century"
Current Position: Ph.D. program at a university

Thesis: Grief: Catholic Women and the Funeral Dinner
Electives: Ethics in Public Policy Analysis; Gender Issues in Communication; Performance and Rhetorical Texts in Social Change
Current Position: Social Services in the St. Paul/Minneapolis Minnesota area

Thesis: The Diary/Journal: Talking With Women Who Record Their Lives
Electives: Seminar in Cultural Performance; Seminar in Communication: Language, Gender, and Culture; Seminar in Folklore Research
Other Degree Highlights: nominated for the UNI Outstanding Master's Thesis Award
Current Position: Academic Advisor at a university

Thesis: Endometriosis: A "Woman's Problem" is a Feminist Issue
Electives: Feminist Literary Theories and Practice: Individual Readings: Women's Writing in Russia; Women's Health
Current Position: teaching English as a second language

Thesis: Socialism, Dress, and Gender
Electives: Society and Culture in the U.S.; Women in Politics: Theories of Sex and Gender
Other Degree Highlights: helping to facilitate the Difficult Dialogues at UNI; participation at the Montana Conference on Theoretical Approaches to Marginalized Literatures
Current Position: Ph.D. degree at a university

Thesis: Creating Space for Agency: Using Autobiography to Interrogate Theories of Susan Bordo and Judith Butler
Electives: Language, Culture and the Individual in Cross-cultural Perspective; Studies in Research Communication Methodology; Psychology of Aging
Current Position: Ph.D. degree at a university

Thesis: Without Consent: Roman Catholic Women Sexually Abused/Exploited in the Pastoral Relationship
Electives: Qualitative Research; Religion in America; Religion and Sexuality
Current Position: therapy in St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota area

Thesis: Making Coffee, Breaking Bread, and Bridging the Gaps: An Ethnography of Bosnian Women in the Refugee Community of Des Moines, Iowa
Electives: Readings in Women's Studies: Feminist Ethnography; Fundraising and Grant Development; Communication Research Methods; Studies in Public Policy Ethics; Religion and autobiography
Other Degree Highlights: as graduate assistant serves as director of programming and development for the undergraduate women's studies program
Current Position: Instructor in the School of Health, Physical Education and Leisure at a university.